Okay, it's mostly known as Trivandrum, but with a name like Thiruvananthapuram, I couldn't resist using it as a title. It's the capital of Kerala state in southern India. Kerala is known for a few things. Traveling around the backwaters on some sort of houseboats (didn't interest me), having one of TWO democratically elected Marxist/Lenninist governments in the history of life on the planet earth (the other is in West Bengal), and having one of the highest literacy rates in India and, it seems to me, the world. Something like 98 percent of Keralites are literate. It's a beautiful part of India. Very tropical, laid back (if anywhere in South Asia can really be called "laid back"), and completely tout-less. Always a benefit in India. I was there but 1.5 days and so all I saw of Kerala was a small part of its capital: Thiruvananthapuram